As far as typical user-experience goes, you shouldn't think of IRC as "an instant messenger with channels as a kind of extra thing on the side". The public mult

As far as typical user-experience goes, you shouldn't think of IRC as "an instant messenger with channels as a kind of extra thing on the side". The public multiple-participants ongoing conversations in channels are the primary thing an IRC user is involved in. Direct private messages to a single other user are the extra-thing-on-the-side.